Part 6
The carriage road that winds up the ascent on the right, by inclined planes, leads to the Pincian Hill, the site of Domitian’s gardens, which are now used as a promenade for all classes, on foot, on horseback, or in carriages. I shall say nothing of the colossal statues, for they are modern. The three streets that, separated by twin churches, diverge from this square, penetrate the city, forming so many of its principal arteries; that in the centre, which was the ancient Flaminian Way, leads to the foot of the Capitol Hill, and is called the Corso.
When without the walls, we find a little suburb stretched along the road which leads to the Ponte Molle, the ancient Milvian Bridge. This is the road to Upper Italy, or Cis-Alpine Gaul, and follows, in the main, the course of the Flaminian Way. We will quit the suburb, by turning short under the walls.
The vineyard or garden on our left is that in which Raphael used to amuse himself, and the plain stone dwelling is both ornamented and defiled by the caprices of his pencil. He is any thing but divine in that house. The grounds a little farther beyond, and which show factitious ruins, statues, walks, avenues, and plantations, are the celebrated Villa Borghese, which, by the liberality of the owner, are converted into a Hyde Park, or a Bois de Boulogne, for Rome and her visitors. It is said the public has used them so long, that it now claims them as its own; the public in Rome being just as soulless, ungrateful, and rapacious as the public in America. God help the man (if honest) who depends on the public any where!
You will not be alarmed at the appearance of the walls, after what you have heard, for it is the celebrated Muro Torto that once propped the terraces of Domitian, and which, you already know, has seemed just as ready to fall these fourteen hundred years as it is to-day. This wall is said to be twenty-five feet thick, and it seems at least forty feet high. This height, however, rather exceeds that of the wall in general, which varies, perhaps, from twenty to thirty feet.
We are next passing by that part of the city wall where the Villa Ludovisi Buon Compagni lies, _within_ the _enceinte_ of the city; and the gate just passed, and which is not used, is the Pincian. There is a tradition that Belisarius asked alms at this gate; but it is more probable that he caused it to be rebuilt. The little Gothic-looking tower that appears on the wall is in the garden of the Villa Paolina, so called from Pauline, the sister of Napoleon. This garden and its very handsome pavilion are now the property of the Prince of Musignano, her nephew, the eldest son of Lucien, a gentleman well known in America for his work on its birds. The gate beyond is the Porta Salara. Alaric entered the city at this point; and the Gauls, more remotely, penetrated by the Porta Collina, which was the counterpart of the present gate in the wall of Servius, though necessarily less advanced than this. Hannibal is also said to have manifested an intention to attack the town on this side, whence it is inferred it was the weak quarter. It is not probable the walls were less strong here than elsewhere; but the military advantages of attacking the place on this side are sufficiently apparent to the eye.
The land both within and without the walls of Rome is higher here than any where else on this side of the Tiber. It is consequently drier and more healthy as an encampment, and, while equally easy to enter as any other quarter, offers great facilities to the assailant when gained. The gardens of Sallust lay just within this gate, and traces of the walls are still seen. The _agger_ of Servius Tullius, beneath which the vestal virgins who violated their vows were interred, was also within this gate. Traces of the former are still seen. This additional wall would seem to imply the danger the city ran on this particular side. The Pretorian Camp lay outside of this agger, but within a wall of its own.
The country on our left is now getting to be more open, and is assuming the appearance of the Campagna; though gardens and a sort of meagre suburbs are still met with. After passing the Porta Pia, which is near the ancient Porta Nomentana, we come to a line of wall that is evidently different from the rest in construction, and even in elevation. It forms three sides of a square, or nearly so, projecting in that form beyond the regular walls of the town, of which, however, it forms a part. This is the enclosure of the Pretorian Camp, though now composing part of the defences of the town. All this part of Rome, within the walls, is in gardens or vineyards, though one can find his way among them on horseback, by means of paths, lanes and breaches.
We next approach the gate of San Lorenzo, which leads to Tivoli and the Sabine Hills. Here, half a mile from the walls, stands one of the basilicæ of Rome. It is an ancient church, and is remarkable for the variety and richness of its columns, many of which are of precious African marbles, or of porphyry, and all of which, I believe, are taken from the ruins of ancient Rome. One of the old writers, it is said, speaks of two columns that were made by certain artists, who marked them by a frog and a lizard, animals whose Latin or Greek appellations corresponded with their own, (at least this is the tradition,) and these columns still exist in this church. I can vouch for the columns, but not for the story, which may, nevertheless, be true.
The country now opens still more, and just before we reach the gate of Naples, and after passing under the arches of an aqueduct, we will turn upon the Campagna, and gallop across the swells, which are but little enclosed. After proceeding a mile or two, sometimes following roads, and at others coursing over fields that seem as deserted as the ruins with which they are dotted, we reach a small brick edifice, that is said to have been erected on the spot where Coriolanus was met by his mother. There are other accounts of this edifice, which is evidently ancient, though so diminutive and frail-looking; but the brickwork of Rome seems to have a power of endurance that the stone-work of other countries does not possess.
Seeing the line of ruined tombs which mark the course of the Appian Way on our right, we will now gallop in that direction. The paths across the fields, the runs of water, and the wildness of scenery, harmonize well with the pictures of antiquity, and our spirits rise with the speed of the horses,—animals, by the way, of great powers of endurance, as well as foot and fire. These horses are derived from barbs, the breed of the Chigi, so called from the princes of that name, is of the best repute; and the horse I ride is noted for his courage, though he has seen near twenty years. This fine beast is as white as snow, and has long been a favourite with the strangers.
After crossing several low swells of land, we come to a place of more pastoral beauty than is common on the Campagna, in which the swales get to be almost diminutive valleys, through one of which trickles a run of water. Here we find another tiny brick temple, one not larger than the Catholic Chapels that so frequently occur by the way-side, and which, at need, might contain thirty or forty devotees. It is called the temple of the God of Return,[6] a deity of whom you probably never heard before.
Footnote 6:
_Fanum Rediculi._
It is said that this tiny temple, which is very prettily placed, was erected to celebrate the retreat of Hannibal from before the walls of Rome, and some go so far as to say that his determination was made in this precise spot; a conceit, by the way, not poetically fine, since there is scarcely a place in the vicinity so likely to tempt one to remain. The term _ridiculous_, which is universally applied to the building, would imply the idea of derision, and that the temple was erected in mockery. Allowing the history to be true, it may be considered a very extraordinary relic; but I believe the antiquaries ascribe it to a much later period, by the brickwork, which is a little peculiar, or to the reign of Nero. Admitting even this, it is near eighteen hundred years old.
Turning up the rivulet, we will ride on a knoll, about half a mile from this _Fanum Ridiculi_, where we find the ruins of another temple, though it is roofed and is even converted into a sort of chapel. This is called, and perhaps justly, a temple of Bacchus. It passed a long time for another edifice, but recent discoveries in a vault leave little doubt that it was erected in honour of Bacchus. It was of more pretension than either of the other small brick edifices, though very little larger, and not of a very pure taste. It had a portico of four columns, evidently taken from some other edifice, and which are now built into the front wall, probably with a view to enlarge it as a church. This building has a _staggering_ and _propped_ look, which, while it may not be classically just, suggests the idea of drunkenness, very eloquently.
Taking into view the beauty of the spot, the distance from the walls (about two miles,) and the neighbourhood, which, from remote antiquity, has been used for festivals, it is probable this temple was erected as a sort of religious memorial of merry-makings; a union of the profane and the sacred, that the ancients were addicted to, as well as the moderns. It may have been a drinking pavilion of some pious debauchee, who had the notion to sanctify his cups by the emblems, and even the services of the altar! Why not?—men are still found committing as flagrant acts of blasphemy, under the show of religion, every day—ay, and even every hour of the day.
Quitting this, and descending into the valley again, if valley it may be called, we find a sort of grotto, in the hill side, with a recumbent statue, a spring of pure water, the source of the rivulet, and the appearance of former decorations that are now wanting, particularly of statues. This place is popularly called the fountain of the nymph Egeria, so celebrated for the artifice of Numa. It is, however, pretty certain that this is not the true spot; and, considering the proximity of the temple of Bacchus, the grotto is probably the remains of some Roman expedient to cool wine, and to drink it luxuriously. Religion may have been mixed up of old with these debauches, as we know politics and dinners go together in our own times. The recumbent statue is clearly no statue of a nymph. The work is thought by even the sceptics to be as old as the time of Vespasian. This grotto and the temple of Bacchus, probably, had some allegorical connexion, the one being a place to carouse in, the other a temple to sanctify the rites; and if we add the other fane to the whole, as an emblem of the manner in which drunkards render themselves _ridiculous_, we may be quite as near the truth as the antiquaries.
We will quit these pleasant dales, and ride across the fields, a short mile, to the line of ruined tombs that marks the remains of the Appian Way. An extensive pile of ruins will naturally first attract our attention; and we will spur our horses up the sharp acclivity on which it stands, though by making a small _détour_, and getting into the rough road, that still leads out on the old route for a few miles, we might reach the summit more easily. On reaching this spot, we find the remains of a castle of the middle ages, with courts, walls, and towers, scattered about the fields, all built in the usual rude and inartificial manner of those structures, with a keep, however, that has the grace and finish of the Roman architecture. This keep is round, well preserved, much better, in short, than the rest of the edifice, which is crumbling around it. It is about eighty feet in diameter, and is constructed of vast hewn blocks of travertine; while the other parts of the work appear to be made of stones gathered in the fields, or taken from the foundations of the tombs. The latter was most probably the fact. The walls of this keep are thirty feet thick, the interior being little more than a small vaulted room. It formerly contained the sarcophagus that is still seen in the court of the Farnese Palace; for, in brief, this keep was merely one of the tombs of the Appian Way.
An inscription puts the name of the person in whose honour this extraordinary mausoleum was erected out of all doubt. It is the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, the wife of a mere triumvir, a _millionnaire_ of his day. This tomb is, therefore, the Demidoff of the Via Appia. It is probably the noblest mausoleum now standing in Europe. There is no uncertainty about its history; and yet, while one looks at it with wonder as a specimen of Roman luxury and magnificence, it fails to excite one half the interest that is felt when we linger around a spot that is celebrated, by even questionable tradition, for any other sort of greatness. As I gaze at it, my mind compares this specimen of art with the civilisation of Rome, endeavours to form a general picture from the particular object, and, certainly, it finds food for useful, as well as for agreeable reflection; but it scarcely turns to the wife of the triumvir at all: and when it does, it is rather to distrust her merits: for pure virtue is seldom so obtrusive or pretending as may be inferred from this tomb. Insignificance is ill advised in perpetuating itself in this manner. The rest of those ruins are said to be a fortress of the Popes, about five hundred years old; the tomb itself dating from the close of the republic.
We might follow the Appian Way with great interest; but, as our ride has already extended to nearly ten miles, it may be well to turn towards the city. The ruins of a temple, and some extensive remains of a very unusual and irregular character, attract our attention near the large tomb. A part of these ruins are thought to belong to a villa erected at the end of the third century; and it is probable that the remainder were incorporated in its ornaments, as we include ruins in the landscape gardening of our own time. There is clearly a temple which, it is conjectured, also, answered the purpose of a mausoleum. Attached to this temple, was a circus, the only one, I believe, that still preserves enough of its ancient form to give us ocular proof of the real construction of these celebrated places of amusement.
By the popular account, the circus is ascribed to Caracalla, and the temple is called the _stables_ of the circus; but, discoveries as recent as 1825, show that the latter is a temple, or mausoleum, and even in whose honour it was erected. Vasi disposes of the claims of Caracalla satisfactorily; and, to say the truth, they were not very great. He was fond of the amusements of the circus; a circus is seen on the reverse of his medals; and a statue of himself and his mother were found at no great distance from this particular circus, though not in it. On this authority, it was thought he had caused this particular circus to be built. The two first reasons amount to nothing, especially as the circus of the medals is clearly the Circus Maximus, which Caracalla caused to be repaired. The statues may have even belonged to this circus, and been placed there in honour of so great a patron of the sports; for we certainly should not deem it any great proof that Napoleon erected a military hospital because we found his statue in it, or that Nelson erected Greenwich if a picture of him should be discovered in its ruins. This reasoning is made all the stronger by the fact that this circus is of a workmanship much later than the time of Caracalla, who has left memorials enough of his age in his baths. But inscriptions have set the matter finally at rest; and it is now known that this circus was erected by Maxentius, about the year 311 of our era, who caused it to be consecrated to his son Romulus, who was _deified_. This _deification_, at so late a period, must mean something like the canonization of the Catholic saints in our own time. It was a declaration of peculiar sanctity. The lesser gods of antiquity were probably no more than the good men of modern days.
As the temple is but a temple, of which there are hundreds still standing, we will ride round through the fields, and enter the circus by the great gate, which has been recently opened. Within the area, we find a long narrow space, surrounded by low walls, with, here and there, a tower. It is divided into two parts by a sort of dwarf wall, which was called the _spina_. The sides are straight, but the two ends are circular. At that opposite to the gate, are the traces of the _carceres_, or the cells in which the chariots were stationed previously to starting; the circular form giving each a pretty nearly equal chance. In these cells or stalls the competitors were ranged, and at the signal, which it is thought was given from a particular tower about the centre of one of the walls, they dashed out towards the side of the circus that had the most room between it and the dwarf wall; for the greatest space was required at the commencement of the race, when the chariots were nearly abreast of each other. Space was also left to pass round the ends of this dwarf wall, on which statues and obelisks were commonly placed, and the chariots came in as they could. The side walls contained seats, like an amphitheatre, it is said, for 18,000 people.
The length of this circus is 1560 Roman feet, or rather more than a quarter of a mile; which, doubled, gives a course of more than half a mile long; but as many turns might be made as were desired. Judging from what I saw at Florence, the nicety of the sport must have very much depended on the skill of the charioteer in turning. The width is 210 feet. The dwarf wall is not quite 900 feet long, and it varies in height from two to five feet. The remains of pedestals show that there were many statues, besides those on the _spina_. There were thirteen stalls. The granite obelisk of the Piazza Navona was taken from this place, about two centuries since; an Egyptian obelisk appearing to be an ornament _d’usage_, for a Roman circus. The dwarf wall is not quite parallel to the side walls: an arrangement that was probably made with a view to facilitate the mode of starting. There is a tomb in this circus, that appears to be much older than the circus itself, and which was probably included in it, for want of space. The general direction is at right angles to the Appian Way, on which the circus stands. It was a place of amusement without the walls, and gives another blow to the theory of the extraordinary extent of the town.
It is fortunate that this circus, though an inferior specimen of its kind, did stand without the walls, for it would probably have shared the fate of the others had it been within them. As it is, it is very curious, for the reason just given, and because it is one of the best preserved ruins near Rome. The wall of Aurelian must have not only enclosed this circus, but it must have extended far beyond it, to have been fifty miles in circuit. I find sufficient evidence that, on which ever side of Rome I ride, the _enceinte_ was probably never materially larger than it is at this moment.
We will now leave the circus and ride towards the city. As we pass along the narrow road, we see several rude dwellings constructed on the tops of ruined tombs, the living having dispossessed the dead. After passing through a species of suburb, leaving many ancient objects unvisited, we reach the walls again, and turn along beneath them towards the river. On reaching the last gate, having now made the entire circuit of the city proper, we enter, and find ourselves in an open space, or in one little intercepted by walls, and near the celebrated tomb of Caius Cestius. This tomb is a pyramid a hundred of our feet high, and sixty square at the base. Its walls are very thick, and it is faced with blocks of hewn marble. The summit is still a fine point, though it looks modern, which is probably the fact, as the tomb has been repaired. This pyramid is another proof that the Romans built for time, since it is of the date of Agrippa, and is astonishingly well preserved, the restorations having been little more than renewing the apex. It was also buried at the base a few feet, and the earth has been removed.
Near this monument is the cemetery of the Protestants. We can see on a modern stone, near the wall of the city, this inscription—“_Cor Cordium_.” It marks the grave of Shelley; though I do not understand how his ashes came here, as his body was burned on the shore of Pisa. The inscription was written by his wife, the daughter of Godwin.
Across the open space, is a low isolated mount, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet high, and some four or five hundred feet in circumference, with vineyards clustering around its base, and with its summit and sides gay with the young grasses of March. Galloping to its foot, we follow a winding path, and ride to the top, where we are rewarded with a beautiful view, more particularly of the heights on the opposite side of the river. This little mountain is called Testaceo, from the circumstance of its having been entirely formed of broken pottery,[7] brought out of the town and deposited here. By kicking the grass, you still see the fragments beneath, the soil being scarcely two inches deep. Its history is not very well established; but that such is its origin, the eye sees for itself. An order of the police may have rendered this accumulation of broken pottery necessary.
Footnote 7:
Testa.
Near this mount, the port is seen; vessels ascending the Tiber, from the sea, as far as this. But for the bridges, they might go even higher; though it would be without a sufficient object.